PAST HISTORY OF EXHIBITIONS NOV 2013 TO APR 2014: WHEN ETCH GALLERY AND STUDIOS WAS LOCATED AT 215 MOORABOOL ST GEELONG

ETCH gallery and studios first ever exhibition is a wonderful eclectic mix of work from the Geelong Regions talented new and emerging artists. The exhibition as the title suggests is an off the wall show; meaning that when you purchase one of these amazing artworks you can take it home with you and not have to wait until the end of the exhibition.

This photo gallery is just a small sample of all the wonderful pieces in our first ever exhibition ‘OFF THE WALL’.

‘IMPRINT’ An Exhibition by Robyn Mackay

Exhibition Dates 19-Feb-14 to 11-Mar-14

ETCH Gallery and Studios 215 Moorabool St Geelong

Robyn Mackay presents images and impressions of our regions significant natural environments and reminds us of what makes these places so unique and so special.

‘IMPRINT’ is a selection of woodcut, mono prints, drawings and paintings. Robyn is a talented local artist, accomplished printmaker and creator of Geelong’s newest artist-run space ETCH Gallery and Studios.

The opening night audience will have the opportunity to experience the art of drawing and painting with both hands. This drawing method devised by Dr Eiichi Tosaki involves concentration and discipline. Artist and Deakin University honours student Jennifer McElwee explains the process.

“…creating two-handed drawing compositions is much like resolving a puzzle. Once both hands know where to move, the process then becomes meditative…”

Jenny McElwee is a prize-winning local artist who approaches her work in a serendipitous way. Jenny paints and draws in response to found objects and the information they provide. By linking the abstracted compositions to text and music they become a knowledge expanding journey. Jenny sources old books, vinyl records, music scores and more recently dictionaries. Words and their definitions are used as material in her works. These fascinating art works explore bi-manual drawing and the art of two-handed compositions.

Dr Eiichi Tosaki is an artist, art historian, and philosopher. He has developed Bimanual Coordination Drawing (BCD: http://bimanualdrawing.wordpress.com/) for 30 years. He has lectured widely on art history, art theory, philosophy, religion, Japanese culture and practical art. He has published on art history, philosophy, and Japanese culture in Australia and the US. His book “Mondrian's Philosophy of Visual Rhythm - Phenomenology, Wittgenstein, and Eastern thought”will be published by Springer in 2014. He has exhibited and collaborated internationally with artists, musicians, and computer programmers. Recently he has been involved with Fukushima Biennale 2012 and Tokyo Experimental Festival 2013 in Japan.

BCD (Bimanual Combo Drawing) is a series/method of asymmetrical compositional rhythmic drawings, using both hands simultaneously. BCD uses structure or composition itself as an engine of making shapes and a creative generator.

The aim is to generate a variety of ‘composition’ according to the number of strokes/beats which comprise each composition. These are interpreted as forms of rhythmic structure. This approach to drawing produces non-figurative (non-iconic) art work, pursuing the musical condition of visuality through the concept of ‘rhythm as composition’ (or schema).

BCD is a process of pure drawing, in the sense that it is non-referential. Rather, BCD is gestural and concerns flow. Shapes (within the compositions) made by BCD are ambiguous: the same line in BCD delineates both internal and external spaces, defining contour, surface and edge. Because lines occupy multiple spaces at the same time, BCD can be understood to compose a ‘ribbon’: an elastic strip which is conceptually and aesthetically more akin to the Möbius strip or Kline bottle than to conventional drawing on paper. He has crystalised roughy 100 BCD modular compositions from among thousands of trial drawings which were the result of a distillation of 30 years developing and practicing this method.